Focus In Practice: Day 2 “Winning Small Battles”

Today I set out to accomplish the same 6 items outlined yesterday: Jog, Read, Review Notecards, Write and Walk The Dog.

Yesterday I went 1 for 6 (~16%). Today I went 3 for 6 (50%): Read, Review Notecards and Walk The Dog

By no-means did I go to sleep early, but I definitely fell asleep earlier than the previous night. Instead of looking at this 50% fail rate; I’m looking at it as a small battle victory. Arriving at the Small Victory mindset is critical to success. Still, don’t sugar coat anything. A fail is a fail, and if this was a question of “did you succeed or fail in meeting all six goals?” the answer is clearly failure. However, life isn’t a quiz. Life isn’t broken up into semesters and summer breaks. Life isn’t always about absolutes.

If you look at improvement as small victories, it helps you move towards the bigger victory (in this case, consistently accomplishing all six goals).

In 37 Signal’s book, “Getting Real,” they dedicate an entire chapter to small victories. He uses Small Victories in project management for software companies:

When you find those 4-hour quick wins, you’ll find celebration. That builds morale, increases motivation, and reaffirms that the team is headed in the right direction.

As a result of reading and reviewing Notecards, my work day was significantly better than yesterday. I accomplished a significant amount of tasks–both planned tasks and unplanned tasks. As well as tasks that have been tabled for too long. I feel reading and reviewing the notecards has given me the focus needed to make this happen.

The essence of accomplishing these six tasks lays the foundation for living a focus-driven life. I’m not sure what to coin this “hour of power,” as Tony Robbins would put it, but I’ll think of something clever.

Next Step: At this point I’m still busy organizing the sections/parts/chapters of How To Get Focused.

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Tagged as: small battle victory, small victory